


The Overlord State

by Dratz



Series: Re:Connected [2]
Category: Zoids
Genre: Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 16:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13415136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dratz/pseuds/Dratz
Summary: Burton and his Lord Gale investigate an old Richter Scale facility in a distant city. However, their visit is interrupted by RS forces, who are bent on punishing Burton for abandoning the organization. In order to fight them off, the Lord Gale must evolve into a new form…





	The Overlord State

He hated crossing open ground--without cover, without compliance, just a wide, gutted space and the sound of his heart trying to wreck itself on his ribcage in a heightened panic. Checking over his shoulder, each flank, horizon line, where the sun set its shadow and would drown itself several hours later... this routinely, rapidly, counting seconds on the dashboard clock and coming up with ways to run away and disappear. The light poured quickly, wind charging for the clouds, shaking his dragon in the sky as they rocketed for the huddled mess of Brown City in the distance. Closer, closer, color draining from his face. But nothing went faster than his eyes about the desert plane, crossing and clearing the landscape in an endless cycle. 

Lollygag wanted badly to calm him and whined when he squinted away again at the storm of sand underneath. This also repeated, like the chorus of an infamous song, his head bowed and swaying neatly from side to side.  


Burton waved a hand as if to say he was alright. But the Gale persisted, shrill this time, and his voice splintered in tone to emphasize the signal. Once, twice, three shouts within the second, slipping through the air currents on great, gilded wings. Maintaining an impressive speed.

 _'There's no need for that,'_ Burton told him softly. The same old story. The same stretching wasteland before and behind them. He was on the edge of his seat with the harness carving cliche lyrics into his chest and his thighs, but he couldn't be bothered to care--not while they were exposed and at risk of being caught like that in the open. So his breaths went on, shallower, shorter, a struggle of life and death while he searched their surroundings for unfamiliar shapes and sudden movement.  


One fleeting glance at the map in his fully-gloved hands revealed that they should descend soon to avoid detection, so he eased the joystick forward and Lollygag dove for the ground. They hurdled on mere inches from the rolling terrain at the same cutting pace, focused, though fearful, and beaten now with the heavy heat. But they would not slow, would not buckle--they couldn't afford it, couldn't afford much nowadays.  


It was the looming silhouette of Brown City that bothered Burton while he went looking past the tinted glass, its dark, slanted grin, the tangled web of shops and signs that would not welcome outsiders. The vast prison systems, high beams and tight security. It was the stiff wide streets with nowhere to hide and the upturned noses of airbrushed models on billboards. He'd been here before and didn't want to remember when the officers had thrown him in behind those bars like a dirty little animal. His palms were cold now, hidden and pale, and he clutched at the controls as if he'd nothing else to hold onto. 

For after the coup they had questioned him and he refused to give them any good answers, and he sneered and shrugged and went sneaking round the perimeter of his cell until the guards came and forced his retreat to the corner. And with his head in his hands he had cried there for what seemed like centuries and clawed at the floor with chipped nails, created master plans to free himself once more. He'd braid his hair and single out the strands; he'd think of old performances when he sang in the center of the stage. Each morning at eight they'd drag him to the narrow room where he could see his reflection on the walls and tried to make him talk. But he wouldn't tell them what they wanted; he'd mention nonsense and names and blackmail the man staring at him from the other side of the table, smile sweetly when they left so that all his crooked teeth showed. And then at night he'd lay down with lip curled up as if to tell them then that they'd caged a carnivore...  


_'Jed,'_ Lollygag snapped him from his trance with a slow, rhythmic rumble and he saw the smoke stacks and sky scrapers from a different angle now. He touched the dashboard with only his fingertips at first, evenly. The dragon purred, he whispered back, and then the both of them were still for a few vital seconds, settling the other in synchronization of body and mind. 

Then they looked again toward the city center. Burton folded the chart out unto his lap and glanced up, down, up, as if trying to make sense of something. There was a road west of their position that broke off toward the the prison complex, eaten finally by the desert expanse, and another from the north... A highway to the south branching off about the suburbs and the old track into the east that fed back in the direction of Blue City. _'You'll have to stay here.'_ He made a new crease on the map.  


The dragon whined immediately and touched down on the bedrock. _'How long will you be gone?'_ his tail lashed, small, particular movements.  


Burton frowned and pushed his diagrams into his coat pocket, climbed out from the cockpit and set  foot on the soil. _'Not long,'_ his voice over the line was smooth and reassuring. _'Keep watch for me? And stay out of sight. You know what would happen if someone were to recognize you.'_  


The Lord Gale nodded slowly and lowered his head like a cresting wave, slow and familiar, til the tip of his nose bumped up against Burton's. _'Stay in touch?'_  


_'Of course.'_

He walked the rest of the way, empty miles, filling painful spaces in his chest and his head with memories of opportunity, of brief bliss. Every now and then wondering if he'd have to stop to catch his breath, but the earth went sweeping on, Brown City sneaking closer, growing darker. Once at its southern gate he pulled his collar past his chin and kept his lips tight, to himself, making what use he could of the shadows. Again, his eyes busy, both brows brushed with sand, passing strangers and unsacred places built of blood and sweat and the smell of heated iron. 

Each footstep lost in the clamors and cries, trying not to weave in circles, though the desert breeze would pull him in the wrong direction and smack him upside the head when he strayed. His riverbed lips were cracked and dry and he hid half his face from this side of the world, naked city rooftops and sloping storefronts fitted with thick, grimy windows. And mostly, he fixed his own pace, dodged passerbys like they were bullets, once in a while turned and wondered if he was being followed by a car or hooded figure, and clenched his aching fists. Ready to fight, to run, to _survive_. But all he saw was his reflection staring back at him, ghost-like, tired, with slanted, bitter eyes, and he left it there trapped in the glass.  


He reached the bridge that spanned a large gap in the ground where they used to dig for gold and ore, and then built the base of Brown City around it. And now the hollow was littered with beer cans and foil, parts of old cars that hadn't quite made it to the landfills--the smell of it repulsive, and slightly acidic, though from what exactly he really didn't care to know. Roaring pipelines carrying water and waste lined the walls, secured with bolts, rods, the pounding of afternoon traffic, and they dipped and snaked about in no particular pattern, eventually tunneling underground and straight into the upper banks to empty their swollen contents. Always here-- _always_ the low thunder of hidden valves and pumps, because the whole place was structured in the middle of a wasteland and dependent on the labor of machinery... a great, moaning, groaning metropolis of gadgets and gears, and the precious raw alloys drawn deep from the earth by overworked hands and handlebars. 

And he crossed without a sound, surrounded even here by a wide open sky with the high-rises forming a boundary all about it, black claws spreading out and up. The ditch beneath the bridge saying nothing, doing nothing, but collecting the filthy failings of a modern-day city.

It wasn't much longer before Lollygag started up, _'Be careful.'_

 _'I know,'_ he snuck around the outer rim of the depression, where the gravel was loose and the streets unpaved. Here, the stench tried to knock him to his knees and he resisted, stubbornly, his expression practiced and fixed from side to side, and ever so stale.  


_'What if they've come back?'_ the dragon whimpered, quieter than usual over their connection, for he too knew this place rather well, and was agitated at the very least with Burton's unaccompanied return. 

 _'I don't think they have.'_ Burton stepped carefully forward nonetheless, and pulled tight at the hairband near the nape of his neck.  


There up on the ridge sat the stunted old complex where he'd met with Renaud from time to time, and where they'd tallied shipments of steel and gunpowder that had been carted from further inland. These to be redirected to Blue City, to fuel the Chimera army and Alpha's imagined beginnings of Operation Genesis in some grand and elaborate scheme. It had been a processing plant once, misused and abused, sold to the highest bidder, became another front for operations disguised cleverly beneath the stuffy noses of authorities. The rest was history. 

Just as he used to, Burton crept up, resembling early autumn, to the graffiti-coated doors on one side past the generators and listened. 

But he heard nothing other than an obvious leak in the ceiling, water or waste from a pipe hammering down; beyond that no movement, no voices, no signs of life from within. The smoke stacks had long stopped spewing, though they were stained along the rims, and he looked toward them briefly as if to uncover faint evidence. Then circled to the main doors, tried the handle--locked and boarded. It was either abandoned or promised to someone else again, for what kind of transformation this time he couldn't even guess. So he went around back now, beneath the twisting spines and tremendous bulk of the dead, old machines, these silver-coated, and interconnected by serpentine ducts of the same piercing strength. And these all formed impossible angles and vanished eventually somewhere below ground, feeding off into the great divide that were the guts of Brown City, resurfaced and surrounded him. Making systems of crates and rib cages to swallow him whole.

And he half expected to see the metal masses spring back to life and choke him, chain him, kill him, in a parade along the stranded pathway he took now to the opposite end of the plant and the hangar where they'd kept their power drills and transport Zoids. And the walls here too were lined with paint spills and swear words, which told him that the station really had been vacated, and that the place had very likely been sponged of any sensitive materials, or any sign of Alpha's damned meddling. A loss. Or so it seemed. He went round the hangars and tried the doors anyway, to find that these were also bolted shut and boarded up, and crusted over with something discolored. So he held his breath and backtracked to the generators and the line of barren smokestacks. 

Dead end.  


He picked his gloves off and brushed the light from his bangs, from his cheeks where it stuck and scraped at him contentedly, head bowed, his coat, his face worn and faded. A sheet of dust hung unaltered between the space of his lungs and his throat; even swallowing his shame was difficult. Statuesque, he stood, with the wind ripping at him between the rods and bars from over the bridge in the center of the city. He lay the gloves in his pocket and thought of where to go next, and what to say to Omega, who could not reach him now and was probably guessing where he'd gone and about what life was like on the other side of the planet.  


He wondered if the little window by the loading dock could still be pushed in, or if the tunnels below had been sealed up, or if someone- anyone- had the sense enough to watch him creep about...

Again, he shied away from the sun and stopped at the corner of the stout, sealed building. Again, he pulled the gloves over his grossly soiled hands. And again, he did what he could do best, prowling place to place without a sound, an actor cast behind the curtain so that he would have to sign his soul away.  


Savage Hammer. Richter Scale. What did it matter? in the end no one wanted him around but to do their dirty work.  


_'... That's not true, Jed,'_ Lollygag reminded him gently, prodding in his head, trying to uncover something better--brighter.  


Burton had reached the sector by now and was inspecting the hatch just beyond the tangled maze of towers and intricate piping, but that too appeared to be sealed shut. With bits of grit jammed between the base and the cracks tearing their way to the edges. Why the entire processing plant hadn't been torn down by now was a mystery--the city or some other company could have seized it at some point and wanted either to restore, or re-purpose it. 

Lollygag nudged at him again, louder, and sent an echo over his thoughts to the tune of an old lullaby they'd made up together, _'You know it's not true, right?'_

A tug at the port confirmed that it was closed from re-entry, and Burton curled up his lip as if to curse. Of course it wasn't true--not in the least. He knew better, and Lolly could sense that, could read him entirely, but it hurt to reconsider, and to think of the Team and the children, and that night at the Harbor when the Gale had nearly died between the warehouses and the lashing might of endless ocean...

Another lap around the factory while he burned, his veins, his skin, the tears pushing up to the lids of his eyes, and they crashed unto his collarbone like a raging wildfire. There was but one last place to check before he left, but he couldn't breathe for certain just yet, had to recollect himself and think hard to recall where the crawlspace was... Near the circuit breakers and the elevator shaft...  


He swept his hair around to his back again and crouched in the corner, trying too hard, trying not to cough his heart out in the vast graveyard of broken machines. Because he was beginning to look like one of them, bent over and jaded, with no chance at redemption. Then Lollygag asked him to stand.

He did so slowly, with a ringing in his ears he couldn't process just yet, oblivious to the urgency of the last transmission. The sun was in his eyes and blinding; he shuffled to the side a bit to avoid it.  


_'Jed!-'_

Still, he couldn't quite hear, and went tiptoeing under the pipelines again, emerged beside the hangars in an attempt to spark a memory. So he circled there, only a few paces before Lollygag's frightened voice redirected his focus.  


_'Jed, something followed us!-'_

Then the world stopped, a crippling panic burst within him like a nightmare following through in the early morning, his head spinning, throbbing. For split seconds he saw nothing but the lazy heat and eerie aspects of the scarcely-spread shade that resembled blood flow and his vague suspicions. No time left to stand perfectly still.  


With a knot in his bowels he bolted for the bridge as fast as his legs could carry him, dreading the worst and damning himself for deciding to come out here at all. And he could hardly breathe, but that didn't matter--he kept going, the world a blur, his mad sprint down the Brown City blocks paced like turbines. _'Lolly, run-'_

Lollygag refused and bristled under fire from long-range; Burton could feel the movement and a strike of blunt pain as he shot diagonally across the street in the direction of the gateway to the south where he'd first set foot in the city.  


_'Can you Project over it?'_

_'I don't know where it is.'_ And even if Lolly _could_ locate it, he could barely control a Wild Zoid on his own yet--trying to Project in actual combat was likely well beyond his current capabilities. Never mind that the intruder must have been stealthed, sneaking up so suddenly like that.

_' **Run**.'_  


But the Gale wouldn't leave. Burton could recognize the interruptions--his continuous attempts to evade--over their connection, competing against a stabbing soreness that was starting to overtake him now at full-sprint. He turned another corner, cut through crowds and smog and the fear of failure that tried to hold him back...  here the gunfire was audible, and the traffic had come to a halt all around him.

Something crested the wall far ahead and came shooting straight in his direction, the Gale not far behind and screaming in a frequency that only Burton could understand. He struck at the other Zoid with an extended claw and sent it spiraling away, frantic and slamming at the air with his wings, swerving suddenly, because there was another behind him, and it closed in at an alarming rate, steady and streamlined. Burton could just catch a glimpse of the wake around the tips of its wings, the shape of which was somehow familiar...  


Lollygag smacked at it, spitting and snarling and forced to turn in circles, because the first of the attackers had recovered from its spin and continued toward Burton at a lower altitude. He dove after and reached out with the X-Scissor now, trying to take aim with his own machine gun. Wings tapered back, jaws fully open, snapping at the Zoids before and behind him.  


They were Storm Sworders--Burton could make out the shapes now that the cloaking systems were failing from the damage, noted dagger-like facades, and clean, cresting contours. These were very same models that Richter Scale had designed to set up strike attacks and intercept the Stratus Nine. He'd seen the project through to its completion several years ago, some combination of efforts between the SWAT and intelligence divisions. 

It was obvious that the design had been revised since then, the air foils altered and equipment upgraded--they now boasted optical alongside radio stealth, a tighter turn radius. He noted once or twice that the back-mounted boosters could pivot several degrees about a fortified track... and the sound they made was disturbingly shrill.

 _'They mean to kill you, Jed!'_ Lollygag opened fire and the Storm Sworder swerved to avoid it, a shooting star towards outer space that cleared the bosom of Brown City in an instant.  


By this time, Burton had nearly reached the end of the block, blindsided by a licking fever and the echo of engine noise. _'I told you to run.'_

The Lord Gale was skimming now just above the street for him, claw clamped shut, his snout angled awkwardly and trying to look past his shoulder for the second of the Storm Sworders--no doubt it had recovered by now and was after them again. _'Hurry! Hurry!'_ He hovered directly above, his golden arms extended, _'I won't leave without you.'_

Burton hauled himself up, shaking all over, his fingernails cached with dirt and guilt and clutching at uneven shelves of outer armor. There was a downdraft violently taunting him and tugging at his hair, left him panting with a pressure at his temple that worsened with exhaustion. Lollygag lifted him higher, threw open the cockpit and banked for the spaces between the buildings to buy them much needed time... somewhere on the other side came the vicious snarling of the winged hunters, flashing blades and barbs and bullets of well-sculpted metal.

And in their wake, the city submitted to a chapter of chaos--a canvas now of splintered windows, shattered dreams, places where the gun shots had hit and fostered hatred. Too many lives and liabilities. Crowds fled like cattle, apartments abandoned, side-streets sectioned off by officers with batons and badges and support from their deafening sirens. Debris, dust, decisions... decisions... The air-guard Raynos posted back at the prison would be surrounding them soon; they had to break free from the mass of city lights and shrieks and shake the Storm Sworders.  


Somehow.

Burton crawled and clawed his way against a blistering headwind toward the cockpit and coughed, checking behind and above them at constant. A gentle nudge from the Gale set him correctly into place, the cabin sealed shut, and he started fastening the harnesses as quickly as he could, fear and fatigue staking their claim over progress. Light fading, his attention divided and the dashboard flickering with different indicators; they were very near to that same old factory now, and quickly exhausting their options.

He knew that Lollygag had taken several hits already--the after-shock still rippling through him, all across both arms and thighs, but he couldn't chance a complete assessment of the gauges. Lingering smog and the blur of the buildings served only to barricade them in, limit their sight and force them out into the open. The Storm Sworders were still stealthed on the radar, and had every advantage stacked in their favor. And while Burton scanned desperately from side to side across the panel, it was Lollygag who spotted an abrupt flash of black-polished metal.  


_'One's moving up ahead,'_ he pinged the position on the map.  


That meant the enemy would try to cut them off before they reached the canyon, or drive them straight down the middle. They'd lose precious speed if they tried to climb, and they'd most certainly be herded into a trap if they stayed so low to the ground, there being so little room to maneuver. They could change course, risk chasing down one or the other, leave the cover of the buildings for the desert; it all seemed like suicide.  


_'Go hard left.'_ They were approaching the center of the city and would be forced down the mouth of the gorge soon at the bridge. Cornered. The Storm Sworders outnumbered them two against one and boasted superior speed, armor, armament.They'd be flanked from either side and shot at any moment now, and Burton could barely breathe, drowning in the sound of the nearing sirens. If Richter Scale wanted them dead, if they wanted to _live_ , they'd have to act.   


_'Should we zigzag?'_ Lolly veered off, swinging the machine gun around to clear the corner _._

 _'They know our position on radar.'_ Which was stressful while they had to guess and check in return. ' _Don't leave cover just yet. Unless you can isolate something, an electrical signal, heat signatures... do they have the old channel open?'_

_'Scanning- scanning- I don't know... but the sirens! Jed, the Raynos!'_

Jail and junkyard or a final gambit. Burton wasn't a betting man in the least but they had no more time, and no choice; if they didn't leave the city now, there'd be more than just two enemy Zoids to deal with. _'Full throttle, head for the desert.'_

He guided the Gale on the controls, sailing past storefronts, schools, over the wall and then upward to try to gain what altitude they could. And soon the gunshots had followed them out, three rounds to the right, one below, all short bursts and deafening. No farewell from Brown City, but for the lingering dust on his tongue, stale, hard to swallow. The partial shadows of the Storm Sworders overtaking them sent Lollygag to a dive, trading height for speed in an evasive effort over the endless expanse. Then one pulled behind to ride the vortex of the other.  


_'Shoot the sand,'_ Burton set the handgun ahead of them and let Lollygag take control. The strafe rounds pounded forward faster than the eye could catch, expelled clouds of amber up all around them... again, again, when they emerged, another burst that acted as more cover. Sun, ash, lead-pumped shells raining down on them... then the trailing Storm Sworder dove after, inverted with the wings folded in, and tried to pull to a better position.  


Burton had to kick the rudder and Lolly rolled to avoid it. He put part of another clip into the ground, the dust rose in response, and for but an instant, they flew blind on their instruments and emerged from the other side of the sediment. Before them was a sea of blue and bedrock and an emptiness disguised as peace... the horizon's embrace, a rising tailwind... stillness, and gold, as far as was even fathomable.  


Until they were under fire again, and Lollygag put himself into a sickening spin to try to slow himself and trail their attackers. Pulled level, lined up behind, his talons stiff and curled as he steadied the gun... Two sped ahead, then split to reorient themselves, and a barrage from on high hit one shoulder and threw off his aim.  


There were _three_.  


And by now Burton was cursing in a language he used to speak as a child, and he pulled the throttle idle again, so Lolly slowed, and the Sworder overshot. In the roll, he could see that this one pulled upward, and stalled itself in a similar fashion to stay on their tail, following its own tracers and letting off another round. The flashing never seemed to stop, defiled the desert and the imaginary moment of calm. He tilted the stick and led Lollygag into a steep bank, inverted, to shake their new pursuer. This one must have been waiting outside of the city in the very event that they'd try to escape, and stubbornly kept on their six to give chase.  


There was no hope of Lollygag outpacing even one Storm Sworder, let alone three. They swept in at every plausible angle, the first two taking turns in formation, the third funneling them closer to the ground, where Lolly had to be cautious when skimming the terrain. Now and then, he could return fire, rolling onto one wing and sweeping the space behind him, but no shot seemed to land. For mere seconds they could continue until the bullets came again.  


The last Storm Sworder was still visually stealthed, and only gave away its position by the bursts of its widely spaced gun barrels. But these were brief, the Zoid incredibly fast, and by the time Lollygag could locate and retaliate, the thing was long gone, and had found another slot to ambush them from.

And they couldn't take it much longer; the Gale's injuries were accumulating, and his cries shrill and urgent. He swerved and spun and beat at the wind with his battered, bronze wings, catching updrafts where he could, only to be driven to descend; sometimes he'd try to break away, but the stealthed Sworder would mimic the movement and continue its assault, ripped past his armor now and damaged a circuit somewhere.

 _'We've got to fight them!'_ an exhausted lash of his tail helped him pivot, and he spread both wings to break. Burton howled in protest, pushed the throttle back in as far as he could, but by then, it was too late.

One of the flanking Storm Sworders saw the opportunity and came closing in at maximum speed, the head blade and beak extended, clamoring on about victory. It was aiming for the cockpit; black-washed steel, flawless, legendary, and the murderous gleam was all Burton saw before the Gale pitched up on his own and the edge punched deep into his chest cavity, straight between the space of his jaw and frontal armor. Both Zoids crashed to the wasteland in a heap of splayed talons, the calls of threshing cannons, striking at each other to find their strength and their feet.

Burton went on wailing, badly rattled by the impact and unable to see straight, his harness strangling, restricting his movement as pulled on the controls to steady the dragon. The responses were slow, three new warnings had lit up on the dash, and he wept in an inner tangle of distress and shame.  


The blade snapped in two, jagged, unclean, and the Sworder stumbled free, the forehead horribly disfigured, busted in on one side and oozing liquid on the other, dark and thick in consistency. The eyes were just as deadly as before, blood-colored and cruel, and the engine still turning. Its wrists slotted in to reveal the wing-mounted guns, and it had no reason to hesitate.

Lollygag lunged at it, all fangs and fury with an ache in his chest that spread like toxin, unmatched in pace, and half the blade protruding from below his chin. The Magnesser Spear came to life, laughing river-blue currents, and plunged into the frontal fan, metal cracking, both their carapaces punctured, though the Sworder was the first to fall. The bursting of sealed plates and air foils announced temporary victory, and the knees buckled, the head drooped, and then the whole of the Zoid crumpled to the shape of a shredded rag doll. Though it was far too little, too late--the other two caught hold of Lolly's wings and wrenched him into the rugged slopes.  


Both pulled to keep him pressed in place, and trying to lock onto the cockpit again, with the guns this time. But Lolly wouldn't let them. He ripped back, and thrashed his slotted tail, knocking at their flanks, aiming for their faces. And though his arms were pinned beneath him, he wrestled to right himself, to counter every blow, but he was being buried now, the sediment caching his systems and sticking in his hinges.  


The pain was immense, and seized at Burton and the Gale with the same blunt savagery--their energy spent, shrapnel spilling off in sections while the Storm Sworders hammered at them from above, a hurricane of claws and the serpent-symbol on their crests that meant nothing now but death and destruction.

It took both of them to hold the dragon down, and the next burst clipped his  wing in several places near the edge, and a constant blaring on the instrument panel indicated that there was something very, very wrong with the Core.  


The smell of hydraulic fluid threatened fatal to Burton--Lolly was bleeding, pinned to the earth and struggling despite it, kicking and screaming and snapping his jaws at the sight of the Storm Sworders that held him underfoot. And regardless, he rebooted various system shut downs, defied explosions of static that shook his little body and stiffened his joints while he fought, so the controls became unresponsive and heavy. Repeatedly, he tried to force open the cockpit, telling Burton to get out- to run. Just like at the Harbor. And the sand all around them looked like those same sinking pillars of fire...

Burton would not run--he _could_ not run. He held onto the consoles with his teeth bared and staring straight out into the faces of the Zoids that had surrounded them on all sides now--and at his own reflection looking back in the glass, imperfect and ugly and tarnished with tears.  


He'd failed the Lord Gale again. Precious Lollygag, who had stayed loyal and true through thick and thin, and who fought his every fight alongside him. Who understood his guilt, and his dignity, and who he was underneath every part he had to play. Who shared his every secret and greeted him with a grin everyday that outmatched the might of the sun and return of spring.... Whom he loved more than anything.  


_'... I won't leave without you.'_ He tried the guns again, but the barrels were jammed, and Lolly couldn't even lift his wrist anymore to take aim. 

They were pressed deeper into the dunes and so rattled that the soreness seemed to ebb away, replaced with confusion, rapid and sporadic quivering over which they had no command.  


_'... Jed, I'm scared.'_

_'I am too.'_ And Lollygag knew. The knocking at their necks quickened in pace, trying to pick off the armor, to pry open the top of the cabin. Another crash, another collision of heat and some combination of rage and a razor-sharp edge was nearly enough to end it. Twice. Three times. Four.

Burton was bleeding too, but that didn't seem to matter to him. Lollygag tossed his tail toward one Storm Sworder, the blow feeble and slow, and some wretched, muddy substance from Burton's shoulder beginning to stain the broken glass. His vision was fading too, steadily, anticipated, and soon the chopping was no more than a distant rumble from within a dimming dream, and his hand slid down to the base of the joystick. Lollygag was calling out to him, his voice faint and distorted- some other fabled darkness yawning, teasing, beckoning back, telling him to go to sleep. Lie down and undisturbed forever.

The blood on his collarbone was wet and cold- black. Like the obsidian pendant on the sheet of his skin. Suspended. He was suspended--nothing seemed to age and he slumped down, down, all points of his body losing momentum, his eyes almost closed. He had no shadow, he had no purpose but to drift, and contemplate the banging in the background, and the collapse of his coughing as if it were a part of his soul.

He couldn't see, he didn't exist--he was nearly ready to succumb to this state and finally rest his head, his tired hands. Slowly strangled, slowly slipping away to the pledge of clean water, subtraction of pain. Shadows circling, his lips parting subtly to whisper back at the voice that kept trying to reach him.  


Blocked in part by the thundering of sirens. And the extended jaw of that same damned serpent trying to sink its teeth into him.  


_' **Lollygag!** ' _  


A glimmer of something. Defiance.

Hope..?

\-- _Change_.  


There was a soft pulse synchronizing to the beat of his heart, steady, and familiar, filling his lungs, his throat with a second chance. And now he spun about in place, searching through the darkness, trying to shake the hooded serpent, calling back for the Gale, prying into the void--he wasn't floating, he was _falling_. He had to fly... He remembered Lolly's wings had been broken.

The beat was something he could recognize now--the _Core_ , just as strong as their resolve and connection. He stopped looking around, stopped scraping at the blackness, trying to claw his way out--reached _in_ instead, took a breath, because he rediscovered all his reasons for living.  


_'Lolly-'_

_'I'm here, Jed.'_  


They would never give up on each other.  


Whatever he knew on the border of death and silence was engulfed with hidden light, sustaining, refining, uplifting--Burton opened his eyes again to the cockpit interior. Defeat, the searing sand and the weight of the Storm Sworders was cast off in a sudden ascent of new-spread wings and war cries. Lollygag tilted his crowned head, remodeled, revived, and locked the targets in his sights. His silhouette was vast and menacing, neck bridge-like and bowed, from snout to tail, a weaving measure of obsidian armor over polished gold. He scaled through the sky, higher, farther, with the sun interlocked between the arc of his lengthened horns.  


The remaining Storm Sworders raced for him, instant, graceful takeoffs, with all three blades protracted and determined to kill. But he met them with the Magnesser weapons, clenched now in tight fists, like tectonic plates clashing and grating together, sudden and sharp. And then all three parted, the Sworders split to flank him again, but he was ready for them. Scaling still, his jaws parted and repaired like the rest of him, gleaming and gilded--determined. 

With one mountainous sweep, he let out a bolt of boiling energy from the Magnesser Lance, his eyes alight and focused upon one of the Sworders, which had circled to the rear. The discharge forced the other to swerve, and he charged the first with such ferocity that it staggered in mid-air and screamed.

His right claw now held the X-Scissor Shield, and he battered at its throat, its wings, the engine pods, returning blows to surface. His Core matching the pace of his pilot's heart, exact and distinct, their attention undivided, amplified. The dashboard rekindled with brand new light, the systems were stable, but Burton could feel that already. And he matched every movement of the Overlord Gale with his gentle, steady hands.  


Lollygag had latched onto the Storm Sworder's face with his fangs, slicing bolts and wire and the bottom of its beak as it tried to break away. The both of them beating their wings, forming twisters, whipping the other with all the force they could muster. Blazing updrafts buffeting from beneath, attempting to distort them.

Burton panned around the cabin cautiously, looking for any movement against the abysmal sea of blue.  


_'Watch for the other one--it's probably on our six.'_  


With a deafening shriek, the dragon released its hold and nosed over, plummeting with increasing speed for the barren pit of the desert, away from the sun and its mysteries. A shadow stalking them was all they needed to see.

A quick tap of the stick and Lolly rolled over with his wings unfurled, all four thrusters burning, hot fire, cloudless breeze, and zeroed in on the small bit of black against the sun. Carefully, quickly, he lifted the arm with the Magnesser Lance and released another bolt of energy, and their pursuer abandoned the ambush, banking to avoid instead and regrouping with its wounded companion. The two of them drove forward for a final approach, monsoon season, a cascade of bullets that began to dent the Overlord's Shield that he raised in defense. But held his position, waiting, envisioning. 

And Burton knew what it was they had to do next, with the titanic expanse wilderness passing them by. He located a new switch on the instrument panel and touched it, slightly, just the tip of his finger, but it was enough to activate the Electron Drivers.  


_'You're sure about this?'_ he heard at once the turbines churning at the dragon's back, and the gauges and dials begin to shift, driven by a tremendous rumble of strange machinery and their firm resolve.

 _'I'm sure,'_ Lolly told him candidly, bracing against the shower of speeding shells, the Shield spread thin now across his forearm. _'I can do it.'_ The mid-section was splintering from repeated strikes, visible cracks creeping their way towards his wrist. _  
_

_'I know you can,'_ Burton dimmed the cabin lights to conserve, convert the energy, and the motors responded with extra might, closing to the pinnacle of their output levels, louder than the fan blades of the Storm Sworders.

They were circling now, coming from different angles and firing off their clips, veering off in a display of aerial proficiency. The injured unit was sluggish, an easier target, but Lollygag stayed put, hovering on glazed, copper wings, the Magnesser Lance raised above his head and burning an unbelievable shade of blue, getting deeper. Brighter.

They would not die today--the indicator on the dashboard announced that the system was ready, and Lolly's body was alight, brushed with the sapphire radiance of jumping static. With one beat of his wings he rose and shot the energy at the heavens, where it twisted and reformed and came crashing down as strokes of effervescent lightning and illuminated the landscape for miles. In less than a second it crescendoed and leapt, contorting itself  to impossible lengths. And just as swiftly, the streaks were gone, the drivers were winding down, and both Storm Sworders had been struck from the sky, their consoles frozen and wings knotted in place. 

With all the weight of the world, they tumbled for the earth, mute and helpless, trapped in conscious stasis until they collided against sand dunes and caught fire. Smoke and ashes, the awful emblems on their faces fragmented now and unrecognizable. And there was no movement from the rubble, no shifting of the metal sheets, no distress signal, but for the licking jowls of blood-colored flames consuming and cursing the corpses. That was all that remained.  


And now the tears on Burton's face were drying, the gash in his shoulder plain and numb; he reached for the spot, hesitant, the rhythm of his heartbeat and the pulse of Lolly's core straightening out on their own, to what he was used to feeling when he woke in the middle of the night. But they were no further apart than before.  


Lollygag reverted to his usual state, a burst of light, a characteristic chortle... the contour and complexities of the Overlord faded to the familiar form of the little Lord Gale, who leveled his flight and slowed, exhausted. Ecstatic when Burton lay his forehead on the panel and whispered his name.

 _'How did you do it?'_ he set the coordinates for Erca Forest and wiped the scent of death from his nose.  


_'I don't know,'_ the dragon dangled his legs, rocked back and forth without looking to the smothered ruins over his shoulder. Ahead. Ahead. There was nothing to do here now but keep going. _'It wasn't me. It was us.'_

The throttle was kept only partially open, their advance gradual but definitive now, steady on the rise and soundless in the wild canvas of a sinking sun and dust. Tasting freedom again, and the limitless promise of flight. Now they could climb, and climb, find the places were clouds were formed would roam, and make rain, disintegrate.  


Each down stroke was serene and uplifting, the Gale's raw jade eyes new-formed stars twinkling forever and ever despite the ordeal--there was no pain threatening to stalk and cripple them now, just gratitude and the gift of life that they tended together. The wind was still at their backs and carrying them in a single direction.  


_'Let's go home.'_

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally posted on February 18, 2015 to [my RP blog](http://obsidianonslaught.tumblr.com/post/111429283378/the-overlord-state).


End file.
